Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Detailed table of contents
- Table of cases
- Table of statutes
- 1 Thinking about migration law and national borders: An aspirational benchmark?
- 2 Introduction to Australian immigration law
- 3 Family and interdependency visas
- 4 Business and investment and skill-based visas
- 5 Temporary visas
- 6 Miscellaneous visas
- 7 Common visa requirements
- 8 Introduction to Australian refugee law: The Refugees Convention in Australian domestic law
- 9 Convention grounds
- 10 Persecution
- 11 Well-founded fear of persecution
- 12 Limits on protection of refugees: Cessation, exclusion exceptions and protection by another country
- 13 Cancellation of visas
- 14 Judicial review
- 15 Migration and human rights
- Index
9 - Convention grounds
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Detailed table of contents
- Table of cases
- Table of statutes
- 1 Thinking about migration law and national borders: An aspirational benchmark?
- 2 Introduction to Australian immigration law
- 3 Family and interdependency visas
- 4 Business and investment and skill-based visas
- 5 Temporary visas
- 6 Miscellaneous visas
- 7 Common visa requirements
- 8 Introduction to Australian refugee law: The Refugees Convention in Australian domestic law
- 9 Convention grounds
- 10 Persecution
- 11 Well-founded fear of persecution
- 12 Limits on protection of refugees: Cessation, exclusion exceptions and protection by another country
- 13 Cancellation of visas
- 14 Judicial review
- 15 Migration and human rights
- Index
Summary
Overview of grounds
The definition of a ‘refugee’ contained in Article 1A(2) of the Convention essentially defines a refugee as a person who has a well-founded fear of being persecuted in his/her home country for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.
The enumeration of these grounds in Article 1A(2) serves to exclude from international ‘protection’ those people who have more general humanitarian claims, such as those who need protection from harsh economic conditions, natural disasters, civilwar or acts of revenge. It also reflects the priorities of Western countries in the wake of World War II.
In the High Court judgement of Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs v Ibrahim, gummow j commented on the scope of the Convention:
Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs v Ibrahim
136 The remaining issues also turn on the meaning to be given to the Convention definition, but they involve more fundamental considerations respecting the scope and purpose of the Convention itself. The provisions of the Convention ‘assume a situation in which refugees, possibly by irregular means, have somehow managed to arrive at or in the territory of the contracting State’. The Convention definition of ‘refugee’, as imported into Australian statute law, is to be construed by first giving the terms thereof their ordinary meaning but bearing in mind the Convention as a whole, including its context, object and purpose. […]
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Migration and Refugee Law in AustraliaCases and Commentary, pp. 264 - 294Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006